GUERREIROS DO MAR

Project on the activity of the stalked barnacle collectors of the southwest of Portugal.

(...) They adopt combat positions, as if facing a stronger enemy, a foe who is usually tolerant but sometimes treacherous. Ducking in and out of cracks in the rock with incredible agility, they seem to mould themselves to the space available. Amid dangling seaweed they merge with their surroundings until it is hard to say where the rock ends and the men begin. They work at the edge, where land and sea lock arms in struggle, each laying claim to the line that separates them. This is the battlefield of the barnacle-gatherers. Men of the sea that they are, they know it as only such men can. At a glance they can tell when the conditions are right to work the tide and when they are not.

Living by the rhythms of the sea and the weather, in tune with the phases of the moon, they are Sea Warriors.